A few other grand presentations of imperial deeds from insiders at court are
– or soon will be – available to Anglophone readers, for example the Life of
Basil, Anna Komnena’s highly personal portrayal of her father Alexios I (the
Alexiad), and the grand logothete George Akropolites’ account of events
between the fall of Alexios III in 1203 and Michael VIII’s restoration of
Constantinople to Roman imperial status in 1261.35 Anna, however, carried
out her work after leaving court life, Niketas Choniates revised his history
shortly after Constantinople’s fall, and in fact major historical compositions
often come from the fringes of the court, from writers formerly at the
centre, or ensconced in administrative, legal or ecclesiastical niches rather
than at the dizziest heights. A slight distancing from the very top facilitated
composition of well-informed, more or less ostensibly favourable
presentations of current emperors’ deeds or the reigns of an ongoing
dynasty.
This generally holds true of historians of the era of Justinian and his
successors – Procopius, Agathias and Theophylact Simocatta – and also
holds for the period when the empire’s fortunes were once again related
in formats reminiscent of classical historians, as by Leo the Deacon and
John Kinnamos. All these have English translations.36 Adding the translations
of church histories and works generally labelled chronicles, with
their diverse priorities and perspectives – for example, the works of John
Malalas, Evagrius Scholasticus, the Paschal chronicle, Theophanes the Confessor,
Patriarch Nikephoros I (806–15) and John Skylitzes – one obtains a
continuous account of the earlier and middle empire’s history available in
English.
World History
